April 22nd was the international observance of Earth Day, and in honor of the message and purpose of the holiday, we asked Exis members how they promote sustainability and green practices in the end usage of their new spaces. Our Boston partner, McCall & Almy, shares their money- and earth-saving tips below.

One client we recently worked with was extremely dedicated to sustainability. The ideas and solutions we provided aren’t unique in their method to addressing sustainability; however, the strategies that they implemented are ones we continually provide to our clients during the design phase of their build outs. Some of these strategies include:

  • Keeping on trend with open seating/hoteling and work-from-home practices, all of our client’s new office space was designed to follow the “activity-based working model.” Essentially they built space for 200 employees but assigned 300 people to the space. There are no “offices,” per se – just touch-down locations that can change from day to day. Employees can work from home whenever they want.
  • To support the open seating layout, there are no phones, only soft phones through employees’ laptops.
  • They pushed for a paperless workplace, creating less need for printer space and a culture of sustainability.
  • There is no plastic or paper cutlery in the cafeteria – only washable china and cutlery.
  • They have centralized office supplies, meaning no individual ordering per business unit – ensuring shared resources and less over-ordering of unneeded supplies.
  • They underwent lighting retrofitting… aka they converted all pre-existing lighting to LED.
  • They installed light sensors in all areas with exposure to exterior glass – saving energy by ensuring lights are turned on only when needed.
  • They installed organic canteen waste composting.
  • They offered preferred parking for hybrid cars and installed electric charging stations.
  • All locations have a green team that meets monthly to discuss environmental issues that affect their workplace, and facilitate discussions on how to fix them.

The environmental benefits of these choices include a smaller building footprint, LEED construction practices, less commuting = less emissions, less paper usage, less construction materials, more open space and less specialized HVAC, and less energy use – to name a few.

We were proud to be a part of this company’s process – to help them find the perfect space and then build-out the space so that it’s both conducive to employee success and environmentally-friendly. You could say we helped their values of sustainability come to life in every area of their workspace.